African Utility Week Conference

At the invitation of Spintelligent Events (South Africa), the WAPP Secretary General (SG), Mr. Apollinaire Siengui KI travelled to South Africa to attend the “African Utility Week” Conference.

The conference was held from 16^th to 18^th May 2017 at the International Conference Centre of Cape Town. It featured an exhibition hosted by manufacturers of electrical power management hardware and software.

The WAPP SG was invited to participate in a discussion panel focused on the development of power transmission networks in Africa and in a donors’ roundtable on financing of power generation or transmission projects.

1. Discussion Panel on Network Interconnection

The discussion panel which took place in the afternoon of 16^th May was themed: "How to address key challenges impeding the achievement of planned interconnections".

The panel comprised 4 out of the 5 African regional power pools (with the exception of COMELEC) and representatives from KfW (South Africa), COMESA (Eastern & Southern Africa Common Market) and RERA (Regional Electricity Regulators Association of Southern Africa).

2. Donors’ Roundtable

This roundtable was held in the afternoon of 17^th May 2017, and help to keep a number of donors abreast of WAPP projects.

To this effect, the WAPP Secretary General had prepared the list of projects identified in the ECOWAS Power Generation and Transmission Master Plan awaiting funding; said list was distributed to the various donors and development partners present at WAPP’s roundtable. These inter alia include the ECIC (Export Credit Insurance Corporation of South Africa), CDC, EIB (European Investment Bank), KPMG, Saudi Binladin Group, New Sparta, TRITEC, Aurora Wind Power and Biotherm Energy.

3. Other Meetings

The WAPP Secretary General also seized the opportunity of his attendance at this conference to honour appointments with exhibitors of equipment/machineries and other stakeholder in the energy sector: namely, the French electrical equipment manufacturer "Made SA", General Electric, Lawson Fuses and Africa GreenCo.

From the outcome of the meeting with Africa GreenCo, it appears that this structure intends to establish itself in different countries or sub-regions (power pools) of the African continent with the goal of serving as a credible and solvent intermediary (aggregator) between independent power producers of (IPPs) and energy vendors (distributors) for the purposes of payment guarantees within the framework of the electricity market.

WAPP and Africa GreenCo have agreed to keep in touch as WAPP, which intends to build a solid and viable (solvent) electricity market, would require some time to carefully consider the role of such aggregators in the future market.

Africa GreenCo expressed its wish to join the WAPP Organisation.